Steve's Blog @ Demiforce

Trism 2

2010-02-13T11:24:00.000-08:00

I announced Trism 2 this past week. It'll be for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. I posted a short teaser video on YouTube recently. First screenshots and things will arrive soon...

Trism 2 Announcement

One Year and Counting

2009-10-07T11:33:00.000-07:00

There was an article printed in Newsweek today about the iPhone goldrush. In it, one particular paragraph caught my eye. It's about how Ethan Nicholas (creator of the independent hit iShoot) is nervous, wondering whether his new game will be a hit or not. To be honest he's got a good shot as being a one-hit wonder on the AppStore. We all do. He was a parttime hobbyist developer, thrown into the limelight of professional game development, expected to produce hits rivaling game industry veterans. On top of that, the media frenzy surrounding this shift in the game industry has probably taken its toll on him. What was probably a very personal, private part of his life has suddenly become a very public, celebrated thing.

Sure, this is good overall, but after living through this myself I can see now why some people seem to *want* to become one-hit-wonders. I never understood why some celebrities run and hide from fans and press; now I do. I never understood why some authors bomb intentionally on their second book; now I do. I never understood why some musicians authors produce a followup that is so arty, progressive, and intentionally unapproachable; now I do.

To be honest I empathize with Ethan. I empathize with the guy a lot. It's hard to get approached by an Apple rep and be told "Why haven't you put out anything new?". To be honest, I've had game ideas that have been upwards of 75% complete, but I've canned them because I felt they weren't a worthy followup to Trism. Every single time I abort a project, I feel like it's a baby I've given up. They'll come up in my thoughts from time to time, and I wonder what it could have been like to finish it, but putting feelings like this aside is one of the many things I've learned to do in the past year. It's been exactly a year since I quit my dayjob, and life is a lot more complicated now in a variety of ways I'd never imagined.

Life could be a lot worse. I don't really need to be releasing a game every month in order to sustain my business. I figure there are already quite a few apps on the AppStore already following this model -- does Apple really need me to create a new Sudoku? I am working on a few things right now with some very talented folks. They're games and apps based around ideas people have never seen before, because frankly that's really the only kind of thing I'm interested in doing with my life at this point. The cultivation of these ideas take time, and I feel like I'm in the unique position of being able to take my time and do things right.

I just want to try to put out unique, quality products that I can be proud of and will be worth your time. When I tell people I trust about my ideas, their eyes light up. That means everything to me! Focusing on this passion, finding my "eye", moving into this new phase in my destiny... it's been difficult with all the attention. I'd be lying if I claimed to have all the answers... but I feel I'm getting there.

It's taken a lot of time and energy to get to the point where I'm able to confidently answer people when my next game's due. I take a minute to look them in the eye and say "Soon" with a smile. I hope Ethan can find this same peace of mind, he deserves it.

OpenFeint

2009-04-18T11:16:00.000-07:00

Aurora Feint approached Demiforce about two weeks ago to see if we'd be interested in integrating their OpenFeint system into our current and future lineup of games. Being fellow "iPhone Oldskoolers", I've known and respected this crew since day one, so I figured hey, why not.

We agreed to strike a deal for a cut rate in exchane for promotional services. In other words, I allow Demiforce to be quoted in their press releases, so we all look like one happy family.

They went ahead with the press release Friday April 17, which got picked up by TechCrunch, VentureBeat, and many others. Very happy for them. However as I was reading the TechCrunch article, something caught my eye - the reporter had claimed that Demiforce had given up Onyx in order to adopt OpenFeint. This could not be further from the truth, a we canceled Onyxfor our own reasons, none of which were related to OpenFeint. Aurora Feint had approached us later on, quite a ways after the fact.

In essence, Onyx and OpenFeint are radically different services which cater to different needs. The Aurora Feint crew has been very accomodating thus far in listening to feedback I and others like me have given, and I wish them well in their success

Trism Documentary by Apple

2009-04-01T13:32:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to write up a little postmortem on the short documentary Apple showed at the event yesterday. I had a lot of fun doing it and was amazed at all the talent involved.

It started about a month ago I think -- my contact at Apple contacted me one day when I was having lunch with a friend.

"Steve, can you be down at Apple HQ at 1:40? We'd love to talk to you."

"Well... umm... it's 12:30 right now and I just sat down to lunch and Apple is about an hour away from where I'm at in SF. Can't we do 2:00 or 2:30?"

"No, we have to do it at 1:40, we have a twenty minute window and that's the only time we can do it."

"What's this about again?"

"We'll tell you when you get here. Right now all I can say is that we want to talk to you."

I was really interested to see what it was. Or afraid. It was either gonna be some kind of special event they were doing, or maybe I had broken some kind of sacred Apple rule and were there in person to revoke my AppStore status and kick me with an iron boot. So I told my buddy Wallace what I knew, crammed whatever food we could into our mouths, and were on our way down there in three minutes.

After we got there, my contact Linda escorted me to a building on the far side of the campus. After a few minutes, John Geleynse (Director of Technology Evangelism -- basically the guy that wrote the iPhone's Human Interface Guidelines) came out, asked us to come into a room with him. He introduced me around. I was in a small room with maybe 12 other people, including a videoconferencing device which showed a lady on the other end. They told me I should just tell my story of how Trism was made, and that it isn't a test, or an interview, and that I should just feel relazed and calm. So I put on my best poker face and gave it to them from the top. I remembered thinking, man, I've told this story so many times now! It almost feels like I'm talking about another person anymore. After CNN and MSNBC and all that I really thought I had capped off that period in my life anad moved on, but that's a different story.

I talk for about 15 or 20 minutes, and after that, I'm excused. I walk out of the building with my contact, and she gave me a big hug. They loved you, she told me. Great, I said, but now could someone tell me what this was all about? The answer finally came: Apple was considering doing a short documentary on AppStore successes, and wanted to see how my story fits the bill. She then went on to say that I should expect a few phone calls in the next week or so to set up a timetable for the shoot.

I talked with the crew over the phone the next week -- all very nice people. They wanted to get a deeper impression about who I was, and what kind of angle they wanted to capture on film. I met the director, a nice lady named Lilibet, who is on assignment from apple with her film crew from NYC. Appatently they wanted to film the entire thing the following week.

So that next week, they arrive at my doorstep Thursday morning, in what was to be the first of two days of shooting. I don't know what I expected, maybe just one person in a handicam filming me around my place. What ended up happening was totally different -- a crew of 25 in my apartment from sunup to sundown. They gutted my place, effectively turning my living situation into a portable film studio. It was a very cool process to watch -- everyone was totally professional and operated like a well-oiled machine. What was even more interesting though was when I asked one of the grips about his history with them all, and he said he had none -- it was the first time they were all working together. These people knew each of their roles to such a fine-tuned extent that they could simply show up on any given day at any given locaiton and perform what they needed to do without getting in eachothers' way. Truly a sight to see.

The first day of filming was all professional stuff. First thing we covered once all the lighting, audio, and set dressing was set up was the on-camera interview. They put these two big lights called "divas" on me (oh how fitting) which were HOT. And I was talking for about three hours straight. By the end of the second hour, I was so exhausted, dehydrated, and cooked. Following that, we did some footage of me on the computer.

The next day was mostly lifestyle stuff. We started at around 7:30 am and proceeded straight to Lombard street, one of the steepest, windiest roads in San Francisco. It had just stopped raining, but nevertheless, they wanted to see if I could bike up and down it a few times for some establishing shots. I agreed, and OF COURSE I FELL!!! I had road rash all down my left hip. They wanted to get me to the hospital, but I said no, if we end up breaking the shoot I know you guys will never be back (they're from NYC afterall). So we got some gauze from Walgreen's, I bangadged myself up, popped 8 advil, and resumed shooting. All in all that day lasted 14 hours -- we didn't get finished till about 9:45pm.

After we wrapped, I heard things from time to time about post-production, but really it was a done deal. I didn't have a say in the creative process, but I trusted them all to do the right thing. I mean hey, Apple obviously paid top notch people to put this thing on -- I knew my "diva" essence was going to be captured in full.

About a month later, John Geleynse pops up in my email inbox, telling me I'm invited to the iPhone OS 3.0 keynote down at Apple headquarters in Cupertino. I thought it was pretty cool, but naturally, I didn't put two and two together. I showed up early that morning, and John approaches me out of the blue, saying I need to come sit next to him when the presentation starts. Still, of course, I have no idea what's going on (Apple originally told me the video would be initially shown at WWDC, so I had put this all out of my mind). Before long, the lights go down, a speaker goes on, and within a few minutes, he starts talking about my story, and shows the video. I was so blushing! It caught me by sprise and I couldn't help but sit there and laugh as I watched myself onscreen.

All in all though, it was a great experience. Very professional people, wish I could have worked with them longer. Everybody was very accomodating, and I learned a lot about the filmmaking process. And of course, I can't thank Apple enough for the huge opportunity they've given me in being presented as their "AppStore indie posterboy" like this. I'm delighted that I could share in the experience and help make the Apple shine.

Lastly, I wanted to speak a bit about Demiforce's plans. All this attention has put a huge pressure on me to keep on creating hit games, which I fully intend to do -- right now we're deep in development of our next title, which I'm hesitant to say much about except for the fact that it is not a puzzle game. As much as I have enjoyed the media attention so far, I feel that I'll be disasspointed if the only think I'm remembered for is being this posterboy. I'd rather be remembered as a guy who made a solid effort in creating new, fun types of games that constantly push the industry forward. I felt I made a great start with Trism, being the very first puzzle game that used the iPhone's unique features to create a never-before-seen type of gameplay. The bar's been set, let's see where we go from here!

Onyx RIP

2009-03-02T13:47:00.001-08:00

Dear iPhone Developers:

I'm sorry to say that Demiforce is canceling plans for Onyx.

Apple recently told us they couldn't guarantee Onyx-enabled games would be approvable in the AppStore. They pointed us to certain areas of the terms agreement contract, but declined to elaborate further as to whether or not Onyx would comply with those guidelines. Ultimately, this presented a business risk that neither I nor my potential investors wanted to challenge. Although much of my own time, energy, and money has been poured into getting Onyx off the ground, eventually I backed away from our would-be investors, and threw in the towel.

The blame should lay with me for this. I was the one who failed to acknowledge the grey areas in the Apple contract before starting Onyx. I sent out the initial announcement, getting peoples' hopes up by calling for potential beta testers. I take full responsibility for this, and I apologize to you if you were one of the many people who have been patiently waiting for it. I always intended for Onyx to be for you guys, my peers in the indie developer community, so the pain really hits home when I say it isn't going to happen.

The good news is that there's no shortage of companies out there planning to offer similar services. Over the last few months I've heard of at least six companies planning something like Onyx, one of which being the recently announced "OpenFeint" system by the Aurora Feint crew. These are talented people and I'm sure it'll be a top-notch product. I hope their business model will mesh with Apple's approval system better than Onyx did, and I eagerly wait to see what can be done in this space.

We're going to pick up where we left off with what we know best -- games. I founded Demiforce as an independent games studio, focusing on new and innovative types of games, and that's what it'll remain. We had a great 2008 with our multiple award-winning indie game "Trism", and we can't wait to show you what games we have in store for 2009 and beyond.

Best,

Steve

Slot machines are the casual games of casinos.

2008-11-23T18:05:00.000-08:00

Went up to Tahoe to snowboard this past weekend and stopped in Reno for a night of gambling. We walked in and my buddy Josh instantly hit the slots. I never gave slots things much attention until he started to show me some of them. Slot machines occupy the most square footage in casinos -- certainly they must be doing something right! So I sat down with him and started studying some of his favorites.

They're really fascinating things. It made me realize people have been playing casual games far before any video game was ever around. Studying them certainly gave me a few lessons in the allure of casual gaming.

I'd love to talk more about what I'm considering but it's just too early. I will say this: No, Demiforce is not going to write a slot machine game and NO, I did not play any slots while I was there :) Josh ended up winning big though. Stay tuned...

i was told to blog about this

2008-11-19T16:58:00.000-08:00

Met with angel X this morning for breakfast. had lunch with publisher Y for lunch. speaking at panel Z tonight for dinner.

There, I blogged about it. And I didn't incriminate anybody! Are you on the edge of your seat yet? Ooooh.

I Can Save the AppStore.

2008-11-07T12:25:00.000-08:00

The iTunes AppStore started off as a fantastic meritocracy. It enabled any company, whether large or small, to make some money if they could produce a fun game. However, this reality is quickly becoming a thing of the past.

Take my game "Trism" for example. I created it this past spring in my nights, weekends, and whatever other time I could get away from my day job. I released it on opening day of the AppStore back in July for $4.99. Apple pegged it as one of the quality titles on the store, and gave it good placement on the front page numerous times. Hundreds of positive reviews piled up, and many people bought it. It was a complete success.

Compare this to the way the AppStore is now, only a few months later. Recently there was a game called 'Pinch and Pop' put on sale for $3.99. It's a fantastic game -- if I had come up with that idea back in the spring, I would have created it instead of Trism. From what I can tell, the guy who wrote it is likely similar to me -- a small company looking to make it big. Apple has recognized this, and is giving Pinch and Pop premium placement on the AppStore. However, the game has only been reviewed 20 times, and although it's rated very high, the game hasn't cracked the Top 100 list yet.

What's changed? How can a fun, well-produced, independently-created game succeed one month, while another suffers just for being released just a little later? The answer, I believe, is the price. Trism was put on sale for $4.99 when it was released in July. Back then it seemed cheap, because many other games were being sold for double that or more. By all means, $4.99 truly is cheap -- it's practically nothing compared to what you'd pay for a new Nintendo DS game. More importantly, it's the bare minimum price for what a small game studio needs to make in order to stay in business.

Since the AppStore opened, more and more companies have been selling their games for less and less money. Some companies promise to put out dozens of games for free or at $0.99. They do this because it's one of the only ways to get recognized on the AppStore: the "Top" rankings lists are determined by the number of units you've sold in the previous day. I'll repeat that in case you missed it -- the top rankings go by the number of units you've been able to sell in the previous day, NOT by the amount of money you've made. So there's an incentive to strive for "impulse buys" and ignore portential profit.

The problem with this is that not everyone can afford to price their games so cheaply. It's an incredible risk for an independent developer to have poured his blood, sweat, and tears into a game, and suddenly realize he's going to have to sell it below a price which he feels is fair. Many independent developers try this anyhow, and quickly see that the game has to be an absolute hit or else it will not make much money at all. Other independents reject this notion and take their chances by selling at a higher price. They may initially make a decent money, but unfortuately it factors their game out of the top lists, which is the kiss of death in today's AppStore.

The only companies who can afford to consistently sell games less than they're worth are larger companies who aim to dominate the AppStore. This is classic sales technique called "loss leading". You can see it in every large company from McDonalds to WalMart. What they do is advertise a mediocre item at a low price in order to get you in the door, and once you're in, they convince you to buy other items which have huge markup. McDonalds doesn't make a penny off the burger they sell you -- the profit's all in the frenchfries. Similarly, Sony sells the Playstation 3 game console for less money than it's worth because they know you'll make money by selling games.

What's wrong with this, you ask? After all, the game players are enjoying many cheap games. Well, the problem is that this will eventually kill the AppStore. In time, less and less independent developers will create games for the iPhone because they just won't be able to make enough money at it. Instead, they'll sell their games to larger companies who can guarantee it gets the exposure it needs to be a hit. This is turning us back into wat we had before the AppStore -- a developer / publisher model, in which the developer is oppressed and the publisher usually ends up making most of the money.

Conversely, it hurts media giants as well. For example, have you ever wondered why PopCap has only released one of their games, Bejeweled, on the iPhone? They could have easily released 10 of their games by now. However, there's such a pricing war going on, they're probably thinking "Why should we spend the time developing Peggle or Bookworm for $2.99 on the AppStore when we can spend our time writing PC versions for $20 a pop"?

This brings me to the crux of my argument. The AppStore is becoming more and more flooded with games every day. We've arrived at a point in time where independent games need to have some kind of boost to stand above the rest. A game can no longer succeed by simply being advertised by Apple on the AppStore -- it needs something more.

Your options as an independent developer? Sell out to a larger company and have them use your game as a doormat. Or, you could spend a fortune in advertising and PR. Neither of these options sounds all that appealing to me. What if there were a free, easy-to-use way to get your game recognized by a relevant, interactive community?

We've been working on this since July. What we've come up with is a revolutionary ecosystem we're calling "Onyx Online". It's set to launch soon and it has the power to fundamentally change the AppStore for the better.

In a nutshell, Onyx Online is the XBox Live Arcade ecosystem brought to the iPhone. I wrote this kind of system into Trism as a case study, and it's been a complete success. Since Trism launched in July, we've been hard at work adapting this online code for use in any iPhone game, and the results are stunning. What we're going to do is allow any developer to insert the Onyx code into their game, which will instantly enable online scoring, achievements, leaderboards, and customized forums.

I've read about other companies who aim to release similar ecosystems for the iPhone, but if you read the fine print, they are closed systems that will work only for that company's games. Onyx Online is an open system which any developer can use. Best of all, Onyx Online is free.

The beauty of Onyx Online is that it's completely viral. We've got about a dozen games right now which have approached us as early adopters. Each of these games will feature the Onyx Online backend when we go live. Inside the games, players will be able to create an account which store their achievements and high scores. The players can then log into the forums and see what their friends are playing. Onyx Online provides a great way for these users to see which games they've played, how they're doing in each, and how they compare against their friends.

A month after launch, who knows, maybe there'll be an additional 12 games that sign up. The next month it could double again. If each of these games features 20,000 unique users, you've suddenly got an ecosystem of a million users. Any upcoming developer can freely and easily tap into this entire collective. If you're writing the next hit game but you're unsure how to get it noticed, why wouldn't you want a free way to get it instantly seen by a million gamers?

In addition, there are other benefits to using Onyx Online. by having a system that keeps track of scores, there'll be no more lost data when users upgrade to a new version of your game. Additionally, if you have a demo version of your game, your players' scores will be retained when buying the full version. Level packs are possible using Onyx as well -- we're set to launch a paid level pack for Trism this holiday season. Last but not least, we plan on taking Onyx to Android and beyond, so if your game is cross-platform, Onyx can help your players retain their scores and achievements between platforms.

The iPhone needs a system which empowers people and allows independent developers to be recognized and rewarded for their hard work. We're proud to provide Onyx in an free and accessible way, seamlessly harmonizing with the AppStore. We're set to launch very soon, before the end of the year. If you would like to become an early adopter, feel free to visit http://onyx.demiforce.com/.

Thank you,

Steve

omg what's this?

2008-10-22T17:36:00.001-07:00

Side Project: Mother 3 Translation!

2008-10-15T19:28:00.000-07:00

For those of you who don't know, before I got involved in game development I used to translate games from Japanese to English. My university degree is actually in Japanese, not Computer Science. (It's a long story, I won't bore you.)

Anyhow, a while years back I was asked to be a part of the team translating the game Mother 3 to English. I accepted the role as editor and it's been going great ever since. It's a passion project and I love stuff like this dearly -- a page right out of my childhood. The Mother series is known as the Earthbound series in Japan, so for all intents and purposes this game is really what we'd call "Earthbound 2".

I'm making this post here just to add a small plug the release, which is going to happen in a few days. I'm sure they need no help from me as far as publicity goes -- the buzz around this thing has been huge ever since the initial announcement and it's finally reaching its zenith. I can't wait to see the fans go rabid over this thing.

I'm happy to have been a part of this effort and am glad it's been done by such a professional, first-rate team including Reid Young, Clyde Mandelin, Jeff Erbrecht, and Paul Kratt. It's been an honor working with these guys, and I really appreciate the leeway they've given me recently in regards to letting me work it into my busy schedule!

MOTHER 3 Fan Translation

Interviewing

2008-09-23T14:05:00.001-07:00

Just got interviewed by a very nice lady named Michelle over at the LA Times. I think this is the 8th interview I've done so far this week.

Lots of press seem to want to get the lowdown from developers on what they think of Google's new Phone. I think it's fine, but it's not necessarily where Demiforce is headed. The whole reason I got into iPhone development was to get away from the traditional Java / BREW development model, where you'd spend as much time creating your game as you did making sure it was compatible with all the supported phones.

Another thing press is buzzing about is the current state of iTunes AppStore apps being rejected for a variety of reasons. People everywhere are asking, "is the AppStore too strict with rules"? Funny, the way I remember it, the AppStore was originally never going to happen. Until recently, if I wanted to make a game for the iPhone, I had to either write a stripped-down web game, or go through the unofficial hacked jailbreak community. Neither of these models were very assuring in regards to profit, availability, or support.

In my opinion, Apple's shown an unprecedented amount of openness in the past year, in terms of embracing us developers. I'm not going to pass judgement on which apps I feel are worthy of being in the AppStore, but I feel that what we have now is a lot more than what we could have had.

Trism: Two Months and Counting!

2008-09-19T09:51:00.000-07:00

At a Venture Capital forum yesterday, I accounced that our flagship game for the iPhone, Trism, has profited over $250,000 USD since the opening of the iTunes AppStore two months ago. Today, WIRED has published an interview about our story, which you can read here. In addition to this news, Trism has generated a huge amount of press recently, including articles by The New York Times, FORBES, and even Apple itself in their September 9 press release!

Next, I'd just like to take minute to show my appreciation for you fans who have supported Trism. This game was marketed entirely virally on a shoestring budget, and without you, this would have not have been possible. In the past two months, over 20,000 of you have joined our forums. You guys are absolutely great and have single-handedly made this community shine so brightly. Thanks everybody!

Lastly, I'd like to make an announcement about Demiforce. Those of who who personally know me (Steve) know that I hardly ever take a moment to rest. The success of Trism has been exciting, and although I told myself I needed time to decompress after finishing it, before long I found myself right back at work. It gives me great pleasure to announce that Demiforce is now a full-fledged development studio, featuring a team of talented artists and developers, currently considering Angel / VC support. We're looking to expand even more in the coming months to help realize our longterm strategy on the AppStore and other emerging platforms. If you're an experienced engineer or artist and are interested in joining this hot new startup located in San Francisco, drop me a line here.

Thank you!

Trism is a hit!!!

2008-07-21T09:55:00.000-07:00

'The truth is Trism stands as a must-buy game, an innovative puzzler perfectly designed for play on the iPhone'
-- Tracy Erickson, PocketGamer

Opening Weekend: WOW!

2008-07-14T09:57:00.000-07:00

Trism had a GREAT first weekend at the iTunes AppStore! Among the 500+ apps released, Trism sits proudly as one of the Top 25 in the ENTIRE STORE! Thanks for all the great reviews, and we hope you'll enjoy Trism (and our next games) in the future!

Trism is Almost Here!

2008-07-07T09:59:00.000-07:00

Trism is now fully written and feature-complete, and Apple has approved it for sale on the iTunes AppStore! It will go on sale for $4.99 when the AppStore opens on July 11. We're hoping you're as excited about it as we are, because it's truly been a labor of love. We can't wait for you to play Trism!

Initial Feedback

2008-02-29T10:00:00.000-08:00

Initial feedback for Trism has been overwhelmingly positive. Thanks for all the kind words, everybody! We're humbled to be mentioned on such sites as these:

GameSetWatch.com Interview

Joystiq Article

MacRumors.com Article

Kotaku Article

Slashdot Article

Trism Announced!

2008-02-25T10:03:00.000-08:00

We're very pleased to announce that our upcoming iPhone game, Trism, has come a long way since its inception. We're currently preparing a demo release with a few playable levels, arriving shortly. In the meantime, feel free to check out the teaser video here!